Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was the pioneering designer of elegantly simple clothing that focused attention on the woman within. The biopic "Coco Before Chanel," which traces the Chanel aesthetic to the designer's hardscrabble youth, is suitably restrained, but the woman within it is as hard and unsmiling as a mannequin.

As dramatized here, Chanel's story is such a shadow of Edith Piaf's that it could have been titled "La Vie en Noir." Like the singer, the future fashion designer (played by Audrey Tautou, inverting the sparkle of "Amélie") was an impoverished waif who eked out a living as a cabaret entertainer in lieu of prostitution.

At the turn of the 20th century, the dark-eyed girl who was nicknamed Coco for a bawdy song she performed with her sister attracted the attention of a wealthy officer named Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde).

Even after Balsan was no longer amused by her, the budding seamstress clung to the fringes of his well-heeled circle, bunking at his country estate and designing hats for visitors such as actress Emilienne (Emmanuelle Devos).

Sartorial psychologists will deconstruct the sequences in which the black-clad, androgynous Coco cuts reams of rough cloth and rips the frou-frou from old-fashioned garments to create her own look. On a seaside outing with English investor Arthur Capel (Alessandro Nivola), she is inspired by the striped jerseys of sailors.

Yet this biography of the world's most influential designer devolves into a fuzzy love triangle that's like a distracting ornament on a business suit. The film ends with no mention of how Chanel injected athleticism into the female image, influenced the flapper look of the 1920s or survived the Second World War (after which she was accused of collaborating with the Nazis).

The weight of that history might explain why the aged Coco is seated during the rapturous epilogue, as leggy models in her signature attire parade down a curved staircase. That's the glamor we've been waiting for. The thread connecting the ambitious girl to the acclaimed woman is enough to make us wish for a sequel titled "Chanel No. 2."